Jennifer Lawrence has not been shy about her dislike of Trump, once saying his election might just be “the end of the world.” (Reuters)

The Associated Press, New York

September 2017

Jennifer Lawrence is facing backlash online for suggesting that monster hurricanes that just devastated Texas and another nearing Florida may have been prompted by Donald Trump becoming president.

While in England to promote her film “Mother!” the actress was asked about changes happening in America. “You know, you’re watching these hurricanes now, and it’s really hard, especially while promoting this movie, not to feel Mother Nature’s rage. Wrath,” Lawrence told Channel 4 on Wednesday.

The comment from the Academy Award-winning actress drew the ire of many on Twitter, where there were calls to boycott Lawrence films. Lawrence has not been shy about her dislike of Trump, once saying his election might just be “the end of the world.”

]]>http://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/jennifer-lawrence-suggests-storms-are-mother-natures-rage-faces-backlash/feed/0Afghan Singer Aryana Sayeed Vows The Show Will Go On, Despite Threatshttp://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/afghan-singer-aryana-sayeed-vows-the-show-will-go-on-despite-threats/
http://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/afghan-singer-aryana-sayeed-vows-the-show-will-go-on-despite-threats/#respondSat, 19 Aug 2017 08:10:23 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=1129Aryana Sayeed, one of Afghanistan’s most-popular — and controversial — pop stars, says she is unbowed and plans to go ahead with a charity concert despite objections and threats from conservatives over women singing in public.

Once criticized for wearing a flesh-colored dress, Sayeed told RFE/RL in an interview on August 17 that the concert, to be held at a yet-to-be disclosed location in Kabul, will proceed, regardless of the consequences.

“I’m going to still go ahead with my performance, and I’m going to try to give a smile to my fellow Afghans, and give them a good time, and try to change their mind, and take their tension away for at least an hour or two,” she said of her August 19 performance to celebrate the country’s Independence Day.

Public performances by women are regarded as inappropriate in the conservative Muslim nation and Sayeed’s liberal views, Western clothes, and statements pushing for the empowerment of women have only deepened the attacks she has endured.

In May, the 32-year-old singer burned a flesh-colored dress she had worn at a concert after her actions came under heavy criticism from religious leaders as being anti-Islamic and taboo in Afghan society.

The concert date is significant for women as it falls on the anniversary of Afghanistan’s independence in 1919 under King Amanullah Khan, who campaigned against polygamy and women wearing the veil.

Sayeed, who sings in Pashto and Dari, was born in Kabul but left when she was 8 years old. She currently resides in London and says the climate around freedom for women in her native country is worsening.

“The situation in Afghanistan has become so bad that right now, this threatening has become so normal. They can just go ahead and threaten anybody over social media. They can threaten them to death. They can say whatever, and nobody is doing anything about it,” she said.

“Hopefully, when this concert is over — at some point, I want to take this very seriously — I want to find somebody to talk to, because they need to change the laws and the rules in Afghanistan, and they need to take these things very serious,” she added.

Sayeed’s popularity defies the scorn that authorities have heaped on her.

With about 1.8 million Facebook followers, a recent video she posted on the social-media website received 1.85 million likes. Sayeed is also a judge on Afghanistan’s version of the TV talent competition The Voice.

She said her patriotism and desire for unity and peace in Afghanistan had never wavered and that she’ll donate profits from the concert to families displaced by a militant attack earlier this month on the village of Mirza Olang in northern Afghanistan, which killed at least 62 people. Taliban and Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for that attack.

“Obviously, I’m blown away by the amount of support I am getting and I thank God for it every second…. And to those who are protesting against this, I am not even worried about them, because, I mean, they tried their best and look how many people they gathered — maybe only 40 people or 50. That’s nothing. We have a population of 36 million people in Afghanistan and I know that a majority of them are with me,” she said.

Source: gandhara.rferl.org

]]>http://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/afghan-singer-aryana-sayeed-vows-the-show-will-go-on-despite-threats/feed/0Will shift to Afghanistan if justice not served, Zarsanga warns Pakistanhttp://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/will-shift-to-afghanistan-if-justice-not-served-zarsanga-warns-pakistan/
http://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/will-shift-to-afghanistan-if-justice-not-served-zarsanga-warns-pakistan/#respondWed, 26 Jul 2017 13:09:35 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=1076A famous Pashtoon female singer, who is well known for her Pashto songs, has threatened to shift to Afghanistan if the authorities in Pakistan fail to serve justice in her favor.

“I served the Pashto language and Pakhtuns thorough signing at different forums but now unfortunately I am wandering here and there to get my basic human rights,” she was quoted as saying in a report by local newspaper, Dawn News.

The singer was speaking during a gathering on Tuesday which was organized by Aman Jirga against the practice of usury.

According to reports, Zarsanga was wounded along with her other family members in a dispute which apparently arose due to financial issues.

Zarsanga had reportedly borrowed money from some people in Nowshera and the circumstances of repayment led to an armed clash.

According to the singer, she had borrowed 400, 000 Pakistani rupees from the people against which she has already paid 1.1 million in interests.

She said the situation for her living in the country has became critical as she is living on the roadsides at the age of 74 and despite she has received many awards from abroad including the United States for her country.

]]>http://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/will-shift-to-afghanistan-if-justice-not-served-zarsanga-warns-pakistan/feed/0Taylor Swift returns to streaming as rival Katy Perry releases albumhttp://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-returns-to-streaming-as-rival-katy-perry-releases-album/
http://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-returns-to-streaming-as-rival-katy-perry-releases-album/#respondThu, 22 Jun 2017 23:10:51 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=987Taylor Swift got back together with Spotify on the same day rival Katy Perry released a new album. (File Photo: Reuters)

Taylor Swift got back together with Spotify on Friday, returning her music to streaming services almost three years after complaining publicly they did not pay artists enough, and on the same day rival Katy Perry released a new album.

Swift, one of the world’s best-selling pop stars, also made her music available on Pandora, Amazon.com and Tidal streaming services, her management team said. Her catalog had previously only been available on Apple Inc’s Music service.

The pop star’s management said the latest decision to return to all streaming services was taken to celebrate her album “1989” selling over 10 million copies worldwide.

“Taylor wants to thank her fans by making her entire back catalog available to all streaming services at midnight,” her management’s Instagram account called Taylor Nation said late on Thursday.

The move coincided with the release on Friday of “Witness,” a new album by Perry, Swift’s pop industry rival with whom she has a long-running personal feud. Swift, 27, has no new album to promote.

Swift pulled all her music off Spotify and other streaming services in November 2014 after writing an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal saying that “piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically… Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free.”

Six months later she struck a deal with Apple Music for her “1989” album after Apple bowed to pressure and agreed to pay artists during a free trial of its new streaming music service.The announcement by Swift may ramp up rivalry with Perry, 32, who released her new album’s first single, “Swish Swish,” last month. She told talk show host Jimmy Fallon the song was “a great anthem for people to use whenever somebody’s trying to hold you down or bully you.”

Swift’s 2014 single “Bad Blood” has been seen as directed at Perry, and the “Firework” singer admitted recently that the two were not friends.

“That’s true, there is a situation. Honestly, it’s really like she (Swift) started it and it’s time for her to finish it,” Perry told talk show host James Corden in May. She said the feud stemmed from a disagreement over backup dancers.

Geoffrey Barlerin, a 23-year-old student, added: “We wanted to see her. We can’t stop living because of the attacks.”

“You can see police everywhere, it looks pretty safe,” added Oceane, a 14-year-old out with her cousin, who said they hesitated but decided to come after seeing how security has been beefed up.

On May 22 a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing 22 people including 7 children at a concert by Grande in Manchester.

She cancelled shows she was due to give in London, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Switzerland, and returned to Florida, before coming back to Manchester on Sunday to headline an all-star benefit show for victims of the attack.

Chinese President Xi Jinping watched Aamir Khan’s Dangal and liked the film. He told Prime Minister Narendra Modi so – he also remarked on how well Dangal is doing in China

NEW DELHI:

The love that China has shown to Aamir Khan’s acclaimed Dangal goes right to the top. News agency PTI reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping watched and liked the film and that he told Prime Minister Narendra Modi so – he also remarked on how well Dangal is doing in China. Both premiers are currently attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. That PM Modi and Xi Jinping had this Dangal conversation was revealed to the press by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, after talks between the two leaders on how to improve India-China relations concluded.

Dangal, a true story of how a wrestler from a Haryana village defied disapproval to train his daughters in his sport, released at home last December and in China on May 5. It has since made over Rs. 1,100 crore in China alone, shattering several records on the way, and is currently the highest-earning non-Hollywood film in the country. Dangal released in China as Shuai Jiao Baba (Let’s Wrestle, Dad) across 7,000 screens.

“While we were hoping that Dangal connects with the people of China, not in our wildest dreams we thought that this is the kind of connect we would have. It was unprecedented. We are pleasantly surprised,” Aamir Khan told news agency IANS last month. Aamir’s previous films, such as PK and 3 Idiots, also performed tremendously in China.

At home, Dangal rose to the top of the charts when it released to five-star reviews on December 23. The Nitesh Tiwari-directed film stars Aamir, 51, as wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat, Sakshi Tanwar as his wife Daya, and actresses Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra as their daughters Geeta and Babita – who won India’s first medals in female wrestling at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Aamir Khan and Fatima Sana Shaikh are currently filming Thugs Of Hindostan, also starring Amitabh Bachchan.

A Lebanese security official says authorities have banned the new “Wonder Woman” movie following a campaign against its lead actress, who served in the Israeli army.

Lebanon is officially at war with Israel. The ban is in accordance with a decades-old law that boycotts Israeli products and bars Lebanese citizens from traveling to Israel or having contacts with Israelis.

The official says the ban issued by the minister of interior Wednesday has been relayed to the distribution company. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision has not yet been published.

It is not clear if a planned premiere later Wednesday in Beirut will go ahead.

A boycott group, called Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel-Lebanon, has campaigned against showing the movie in Lebanon. The campaign on its Facebook page praised the ministry’s call, saying it is advocating a ban because Gal Gadot was a soldier in the Israeli army, and has expressed support for Israel’s military policies against the Gaza Strip, a coastal Palestinian territory run by the militant Hamas group.

In a widely shared posting on her Facebook page, Gadot had praised Israel’s military during the Gaza-Israel 2014 war, sending prayers to Israeli soldiers “who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas.”

Officials at the Lebanese economy ministry were not immediately available for comment. The security official said banning a movie would be something that would ultimately come from the country’s interior minister, following a recommendation from the six-member committee.

Despite the controversy in Lebanon, Wonder Woman is set to open as scheduled during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan across theaters in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait on Thursday. It is scheduled for release June 22 in Oman and June 29 in Bahrain.

The movie is based on the DC Comics character, Wonder Woman. It has earned Gadot acclaim, as a rare leading female role.

The Israeli actress appeared in reprisals of the Fast and Furious, none of them were banned in Lebanon. Crowned Miss Israel, she then went on to serve the mandatory two-year military service in Israel, before starting her acting career and was cast in a series of Hollywood movies and shows, before landing the role of Wonder Woman in last year’s Batman Vs Superman.

That is when the campaign against her movies in Lebanon began, as the same campaigners sought to bar Batman Vs Superman, which was shown in Lebanese theaters.

Roger Moore, the longest-serving movie star to play iconic British spy James Bond in the famed film series, has died. (AP)

The Associated Press, London

Tuesday, 23 May 2017

Roger Moore, the longest-serving movie star to play iconic British spy James Bond in the famed film series, has died in Switzerland after a brief bout with cancer. He was 89.

A message from his family shared on the actor’s official Twitter account Tuesday read: “With the heaviest of hearts, we must share the awful news that our father, Sir Roger Moore, passed away today. We are all devastated.”

The statement continued that Moore “has passed away today in Switzerland after a short but brave battle with cancer.

“The love with which he was surrounded in his final days was so great it cannot be quantified in words alone.”

Developer and handbag tycoon Bruce Makowsky takes Al Arabiya English reporter Simo Benbachir on a tour inside the most expensive mansion in the US, now on the market for $250 million.

Up for a dream home? Here is a mega mansion that you might fancy.

The mansion, available in the exclusive Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, is said to be the most expensive home listed in the United States.

Bruce Makowsky’s passion project is a four-level, 38,000-square-foot mansion built on spec includes 12 bedroom suites, 21 bathrooms, five bars, three gourmet kitchens, a spa and an 85-foot infinity swimming pool with stunning views of Los Angeles.

There’s also a 40-seat movie theater, a bowling alley, and a fleet of exotic and vintage cars worth $30 million.

According to Makowksy, only 3,000 people in the world could afford to buy it. Mawkosky said that spending big on mansions such as this should be the same as buying expensive boats and planes.

“The homes have not kept up with the toys. So my feeling is if you’re going to spend over 12 hours a day in your home it should be the most amazing experience in the world,” he added.

The extravagant 38,000 square foot property was developed over four years with more than 300 people working on it, according to Mawkoswy, which he believes is the reason why it’s listed as the most expensive home in LA.

Mawkosky’s assets include cars ranging from exotic sports cars to vintage cars. The mansion has a 270-degree view from the snow-covered mountains all the way down to LA.

]]>http://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/the-most-expensive-mansion-in-america/feed/0Angelina Jolie’s The Breadwinner is the story of an Afghan girl filling some really big shoeshttp://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/angelina-jolies-the-breadwinner-is-the-story-of-an-afghan-girl-filling-some-really-big-shoes/
http://dawatmedia.com/entertainment/angelina-jolies-the-breadwinner-is-the-story-of-an-afghan-girl-filling-some-really-big-shoes/#respondThu, 18 May 2017 13:24:19 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=711

Angelina Jolie’s latest production will inspire you and break your heart.

Titled The Breadwinner, this indie animation tells the story of a young Afghan girl named Parvana who chops off her hair and disguises herself as a boy in order to be able to earn a living, after her father is imprisoned by the Taliban. Together with her best friend Shauzia, she risks discovery to try to find out if her father is still alive.

The film’s trailer came out yesterday and is a visual treat:

The film features Pakistani actor Ali Kazmi as one of the voice actors in several roles, including a character named Darya, a fruit seller, a jail warden, among others.

One of the animation companies behind the film is GKIDS, which already has two Oscar-nominated films (The Secret of Kells (2010) and Song of the Sea (2015)) to its credit.

“I am proud to be a part of this beautiful film with this timely and very important subject matter. Millions of girls around the world have to grow up before their time, working to provide for their families at a very young age and in difficult circumstances. They have the strength to do what no one should ask little girls to do,” Jolie said of the film via press release.

“I hope this film is able to bring this discussion to a broader audience. As much as it is an important and very meaningful film, it also stands on its own as a great piece of art. Director Nora Twomey and her team have done something very special. They have breathed life into the characters and paid respect to the subject matter and to a country where women often struggle.”

The Breadwinner is adapted from Deborah Ellis’ young adult novel of the same name. It is expected to release later this year.